Lead Me Home, Brother
by Unmasked Potential
Summary: Ever wondered what it would be like for each brother respectively to deal with the other's death, and meet in the afterlife to be told to return to the land of the living? Well that's what this story is all about! Inspired by Charlie Puth's "See you again" this story touches on life, death and the meaning of all things. The story is set post-Ragnarok with brief mentions to Thanos.


Lead Me Home, Brother

Chapter 1: See you again, Thor

 **Trigger warning:** Graphic character death

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 _It's been a long day, without you, my friend_.

Boots crunched on the small rocks beneath their feet. A calm expression settled on their features as their green eyes took in the sight of his not-brother yet still brother Thor.

Thor lay on the ground in an uncharacteristic manner. He was slain, that much Loki could comprehend, and he couldn't help the feeling that it should have been him. It should be him who was dead, it should have been him to take the strike, it should have been Loki to kill Thor-not some other dark, brooding figure. It was **always** supposed to be Loki.

Loki whose identity was the god of mischief, Loki the god of lies, Loki the weaker one, the trickster, the magic wielder-not, no, _never_ Thor.

It was never supposed to be the elder sibling, the god of thunder, the blonde buffoon that paraded around as Loki's brother. Even though Loki knew he was adopted and Thor wasn't of the same heritage, and Loki would dance around Thor constantly reminding him of this very fact, still, it never stopped Thor from calling Loki his brother.

Maybe Thor never trusted Loki, and that would have been wise, but he always loved him. No matter how many times Loki tried to hurt, maim or kill Thor, Thor always loved Loki.

And it was this case of love that Loki found so aggravating and beautiful, so much so that Loki couldn't stop the feeling of equal love being returned to his brother. It was this realization that struck him then; this currently present pain ballooning out from his heart as the words pulled themselves together in his mind: Thor was dead.

No one could have survived the axe that had swung into Thor's torso, spilling his intestines outwards so brutally that Loki could taste the salt of his tears coming down the sides of his face. _Not even Asgardians were this brutal_ ; he couldn't stop himself from thinking. Never before had Loki witnessed a death so cruel and mind-numbing that it reminded him of the lives he had so easily taken back on Midgard during the invasion.

By the Norns, that had been eight years ago. So much had passed since then, and yet so little between the brothers had changed.

There was still their love for one another and Loki felt the sudden abnormality that things hadn't really changed at all. Sure, they were different species yet they had still grown up together, they had still trained together, did the same activities and took the same exams. They had been close back then, and though they had grown apart and grown separately and life had played a cruel game, Loki had always thought that they would have more time.

He had always thought they would have more time to jest, more time to fight, more time _together_.

But, Thor was dead.

Right now, right here-Thor was dead. Thor was dead as easily as Loki could see because his brother's brains were splattered across the dirty ground. For all that time Loki had ever joked about Thor not having his wits about him; Loki now could see he had been wrong. Thor had plenty of brains-plenty of it that was now lying and oozing out of his skull as pieces of the bone lay five to seven feet away.

Loki couldn't help but be displeased at how disorganized this situation was. He couldn't feel himself moving exactly but he noticed that Thor went from a distant sight to really up close and personal as Loki found his hands-were they his hands?-picking up his brother's brain matter and brushing it back into what was left of his skull.

The triviality of the situation struck Loki as odd as he continued to scoop up Thor's brains and his leathered knees dug into the rocks and blood blasted on his pale hands as he got used to the ongoing movement.

Scoop, place. Scoop, place.

It was rhythmic. It was soothing. It was _doing_ something.

And Loki felt like he _had_ to do something.

Maybe if Loki made an effort now, maybe things would right themselves. Maybe Loki could be useful, maybe Thor could spring back up all in one piece, have a smile on his face rather than the horrified grimace that remained stone cold on his cheekbones.

Loki found himself placing his palm to Thor's forehead. One of Thor's eyes lay like sludge across his cheek, but his other remaining eye almost sparkled. With hope, Loki felt his breath hitch.

"Thor?" Loki's words were less than a whisper.

Maybe, just maybe, Thor had survived. No mortal could have but Thor and he were _gods_ -but even as he thought this father's words spun in his mind that although they were gods, they were no more powerful against the shadowy hands of death.

…Some lives just could not be saved.

But, maybe the Norns would be peaceful. Maybe the gods above in Valhalla would take pity on Loki and give him back his brother.

One could hope, right?

One could dream?

A whimper unfurled itself from the split of Loki's lips. It landed into the air with an almost audible plop.

Did Thor even have the chance to make a sound before he died?

A sob wracked through Loki.

This should never have happened. Loki felt the desperation of these unfortunate events holding onto him like how Thor used to pick up his hand and hold it close as they rode their steads over the Bifrost.

Unbidden memories snaked their way into Loki's blurring field of vision.

This should not have happened. It wasn't meant to be. It was always Loki who should have fallen first into death. By the Norns, he always had before. Why should now be any different? Why should now be the day that Thor has the gall to abandon him?

First there was mother, then father, and now Thor? The loss was too much-too much pain, too much blood-too much, too much, TOO MUCH TOO SOON!

In the blink of an eye, Loki found his fists aching as he pounded them over and over again on his dead brother's chest.

He was so abruptly, utterly and permanently **alone**.

No longer did he have someone to share memories with. No longer did he have someone to love him back unconditionally. No longer would he hear Thor's boisterous laugh, see his blue eyes sparkling, his smile broadening. No longer would Thor be Thor, replaced instead with a broken, decomposing body that Loki couldn't pull his damn eyes away from in the horror of all things.

Of all the things for Thor to die from, of all the times it would have been at Loki's hand, this time-this ONE time-it wasn't, not necessarily.

The guilt threatened to pull Loki under.

Because it was supposed to be Loki lying dead on the ground-not Thor; it was Loki that the large foreboding creature, sick and twisted, had aimed for. It was only that Thor had gotten in the way, that Thor had pushed Loki aside in a sacrificial suicide.

Loki wished Thor had not. He felt more certain that he had experience dying and not dying than Thor. Besides, it wasn't Thor's fault, anyway.

Loki had been the fool in making a deal quite literally with the enemy. It's why he had even set foot on Midgard again. It wasn't necessarily the urge to rule but rather to cause a ruckus amongst Earth's mightiest heroes. If Loki had known that returning the Tesseract to Thanos' crew would cause these set of reactions, he could at least pretend he would have chosen differently.

Except his ruckus turned so very, very wrong when his equally purple-skinned enemy derailed from the plan and swung at him instead and foolish Thor had side-tackled him away from the hit.

Loki had a gut feeling that the Avengers wouldn't take so highly to their Thor being murdered on Loki's behalf. For Thor's death to be accidental, and believed to be, would take a miracle.

And miracles just didn't happen to the trickster.

It was this thought process that was shifting through Loki's mind when a hard, solid object began to clink in the background.

Loki had forgotten where-practically _who_ -he was.

And the moment that the unidentifiable object clunked into the back of his head, he felt with relief, that this might be the end.

He slipped into darkness with a single last thought:

 _And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again..._

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 **A/N** : Okay! So, yes, I'm starting YET ANOTHER series! Originally this was meant to be a 4 chapter fanfic but since I feel I have more to work with it will be between 6 to 10 chapters long.

I changed some of the details around to make the "enemy" who killed Thor to be hinted at as Thanos so let me know what you think of that! I certainly do not own these characters; I just like to have an angst-ridden Loki. ;) I also don't own the solo version song lyrics of Charlie Puth's "See you again" which is in part what inspired this fanfic. This is actually an idea I've had for a year that I'm only getting around to writing now and I wrote this chapter to get out of my writer's block from a couple weeks ago!

I'm doing a little something different with titled chapters; this is set post-Ragnorak and it was also inspired from an aging and adulthood class I took last spring which got me wondering what it would be like for each brother respectively to deal with the other's death and then meet them in the afterlife to be told to return to the land of the living. Basically, that's the gist of this story. Any who, I hope you enjoy this story and feel free to check out my others! This will be a side project that I update every now and then, probably when I'm dealing with writer's block, so, just bear that in mind.

Thank you for reading!

This was written 3.30 and typed, edited and reworked on 4/8/18.


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